"Exploring the inspirations, advocacy, and struggle behind the Thirteenth Amendment"

SHOW NOTES: In this episode of The Blessings of Liberty, award-winning journalist Damon Root joins to discuss his most recent book, Emancipation War: The Fall of Slavery and the Coming of the Thirteenth Amendment. In Emancipation War, Root chronicles the wide-ranging movement against slavery― consisting of white and Black visionaries operating both inside and outside the halls of power, fighting both on and off the battlefield― that made the Constitution’s antislavery Thirteenth Amendment possible.

Participants

Damon Root is a senior editor of Reason magazine and the author of Reason’s semiweekly Injustice System newsletter. He is the author of three books, including the 2020 work, A Glorious Liberty: Frederick Douglass and the Fight for an Antislavery Constitution.

Jeffrey Rosen is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and CEO Emeritus of the National Constitution Center. He is also a professor of law at the George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic.

Additional Resources

• Damon Root, Emancipation War: The Fall of Slavery and the Coming of the Thirteenth Amendment (2026)
• Damon Root, A Glorious Liberty: Frederick Douglass and the Fight for an Antislavery Constitution (2020)
• Damon Root, Overruled: The Long War for Control of the U.S. Supreme Court (2014)

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